Ambition is critical. Acne is a long way from jeans these days

Jonny Johansson’s ambition with his label Acne has grown in strides in recent seasons, straying so far from its denim roots to the point where he can now make his womenswear debut in Paris, and with an ambitious collaboration with the photographer Katerina Jebb, no less. Jebb went into the archives of the Musée Galliera to scan and photograph historical garments (she also subsequently made a film with Tilda Swinton “The Future Will Last a Very Long Time”, which debuted last season). Working with Acne Studios, Jebb created photomontages of these garment scans, revealing the inside constructions of say a Napoleonic jacket or an 18th century mantua dress and these were then used as prints that would run throughout the collection. They phased in and out of mannish jackets cut wide at the neck or partly appeared on women’s satin skirts or all over on a Vionnet-esque long gown. Acne’s cornerstone wardrobe came oversized, ranging in palette from black to corals and teals to creams and whites. It was an ambitious range, colliding a weighty sense of history with contemporary ease of dressing. That’s a huge ask. How big can Acne get you ask? Just look to those massive shearling jackets, which almost engulfed the models.